Jerry Ashton and Craig Antico spent decades hounding debtors to pay their bills—until an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street inspired them to find a way to pay struggling people's debts.

When Paola Gonzalez received a phone call from RIP Medical Debt, she was certain what she heard was a mistake. A prank, maybe. The caller said a $950 hospital bill had been paid for in full: It would not affect her credit and she wouldn't have to worry about it again. "They wanted to pay a bill for me," she said. "I was just speechless."

The 24-year-old student from Roselle Park, New Jersey, has lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease that in 2011 put her in and out of hospitals for a year. Even with insurance she faces a barrage of medical bills that often get pushed aside. "I can't always work," Gonzalez said. "I'll be fine today and sick tomorrow. It's really amazing that people would help out like this.

Gonzalez is one of many people who have had a debt paid by RIP Medical Debt, a nonprofit founded by two former debt collectors, Jerry Ashton and Craig Antico, that buys debt on the open market and then abolishes it, no strings attached. In the year since RIP Medical Debt started, the group has abolished just under $400,000, according to Antico. On July 4, it launched a year-long campaign to raise $177,600 in donations, which it will use to abolish $17.6 million of other people's debt.

Millions of people are, in Ashton's words, "sitting at the kitchen table and you have to decide, 'Do I buy medication today or do I pay the water bill or do I pay the debt collector?'... We decided we should take the debt collector out of the equation."

It works like this: typical collection agencies will buy debts from private practices, hospitals, and other collection agencies that don't find it worthwhile to pursue the debt themselves. The buyers often get a steal, buying a debt for pennies on the dollar while charging the debtor the full amount, plus additional fees. According to a 2013 report from the Federal Trade Commission, from 2006-2009 the nine biggest debt collection companies purchased about $143 billion of consumer debt for less than $6.5 billion; 17 percent of it was medical.

Antico and Ashton are plugged into the same marketplace. They say that with the money they raise, they buy the debt for around one percent of the amount it's worth (when debtors settle directly with collection agencies, they pay an average of 60 percent of the loan.) Then, they forgive it. .....

For people with chronic illness, like Gonzalez, or those who require extended care, the prospect of a growing pile of debts that cannot be paid is simply frightening. For many, it leads to neglect of care they need: an estimated 25 million adults will not take medicine as prescribed because they cannot afford it; others will avoid the doctor altogether.

This is why RIP Medical debt sees the outstanding bills not just as unpaid, but ultimately unpayable. When buying debts, Ashton and Antico seek out patients whose payments create an immense burden—patients who either earn twice below the national poverty level or whose payments would require five percent or more of their income. They work with the hospitals and medical practices when purchasing debt portfolios to identify debtors who need aid the most.

"Think of It" From Kryon Live Channel, "The Old Soul Defined"March 2015 in Bali, Indonesia

You're going to change the planet by your very presence here, Lightworker. The Crystalline Grid absorbs the light that you carry, that you have earned and brought to all of us. This is a profound system, and the new energy of the planet needs the experience of the old souls and the wisdom of the old souls in order to affect those born in the future. This system is esoteric, difficult to describe and profound. Think of it. By living here today, you imbue into the grids the knowledge and wisdom for future generations.~ KRYON, through Lee Carroll

Unlike any other life on Earth, these extraordinary bacteria use energy in its purest form - they eat and breathe electrons - and they are everywhere. STICK an electrode in the ground, pump electrons down it, and they will come: living cells that eat electricity. We have known bacteria to survive on a variety of energy sources, but none as weird as this. Think of Frankenstein's monster, brought to life by galvanic energy, except these "electric bacteria" are very real and are popping up all over the place.

Unlike any other living thing on Earth, electric bacteria use energy in its purest form - naked electricity in the shape of electrons harvested from rocks and metals. We already knew about two types, Shewanella and Geobacter. Now, biologists are showing that they can entice many more out of rocks and marine mud by tempting them with a bit of electrical juice. Experiments growing bacteria on battery electrodes demonstrate that these novel, mind-boggling forms of life are essentially eating and excreting electricity.

That should not come as a complete surprise, says Kenneth Nealson at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. We know that life, when you boil it right down, is a flow of electrons: "You eat sugars that have excess electrons, and you breathe in oxygen that willingly takes them." Our cells break down the sugars, and the electrons flow through them in a complex set of chemical reactions until they are passed on to electron-hungry oxygen.

In the process, cells make ATP, a molecule that acts as an energy storage unit for almost all living things. Moving electrons around is a key part of making ATP. "Life's very clever," says Nealson. "It figures out how to suck electrons out of everything we eat and keep them under control." In most living things, the body packages the electrons up into molecules that can safely carry them through the cells until they are dumped on to oxygen. "That's the way we make all our energy and it's the same for every organism on this planet," says Nealson. "Electrons must flow in order for energy to be gained. This is why when someone suffocates another person they are dead within minutes. You have stopped the supply of oxygen, so the electrons can no longer flow. The discovery of electric bacteria shows that some very basic forms of life can do away with sugary middlemen and handle the energy in its purest form - electrons, harvested from the surface of minerals. "It is truly foreign, you know," says Nealson. "In a sense, alien."

Nealson's team is one of a handful that is now growing these bacteria directly on electrodes, keeping them alive with electricity and nothing else - neither sugars nor any other kind of nutrient. The highly dangerous equivalent in humans, he says, would be for us to power up by shoving our fingers in a DC electrical socket. To grow these bacteria, the team collects sediment from the seabed, brings it back to the lab, and inserts electrodes into it.

First they measure the natural voltage across the sediment, before applying a slightly different one. A slightly higher voltage offers an excess of electrons; a slightly lower voltage means the electrode will readily accept electrons from anything willing to pass them off. Bugs in the sediments can either "eat" electrons from the higher voltage, or "breathe" electrons on to the lower-voltage electrode, generating a current. That current is picked up by the researchers as a signal of the type of life they have captured. "Basically, the idea is to take sediment, stick electrodes inside and then ask 'OK, who likes this?'," says Nealson.

"This is a big surprise," said Juan de Pablo, a molecular engineering professor at the University of Chicago. "Randomness is almost the defining feature of glasses. At least we used to think so."

"What we have done is to demonstrate that one can create glasses where there is some well-defined organization. And now that we understand the origin of such effects, we can try to control that organization by manipulating the way we prepare these glasses."

Researchers grew the glass by vaporizing large organic molecules within a vacuum. Those molecules were then deposited layer by layer onto a substrate until the sample was thick enough to analyze.

Scientists attributed the unique molecular structure of the glass to the way the material was created, that is, layering thin deposits of glass one at a time, thereby "trapping" the molecules in their original orientation. "Glasses are one of the least understood classes of materials," de Pablo said. "They have the structure of a liquid - disorder - but they're solids. And that's a concept that has mystified people for many decades." So the fact that we can now control the orientation of these disordered materials is something that could have profound theoretical and technological implications. We don't know what they are yet - this is a new field of research and a class of materials that didn't exist before. So we're just at the beginning."

The new glass could improve products such as solar cells, LEDs, and optical fibers, researchers said. Source

DNA could be used to store digital information and preserve essential knowledge for thousands of years, research has shown. Scientists exploring the archiving potential of DNA conducted a test in which error-free data was downloaded after the equivalent of 2,000 years. The next challenge is to find a way of searching for information encoded in strands of DNA floating in a drop of liquid.

Lead researcher Dr Robert Grass, from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), said: "If you go back to medieval times in Europe, we had monks writing in books to transmit information for the future, and some of those books still exist. Now, we save information on hard drives, which wear out in a few decades."

DNA has a "language" not unlike the binary code used in computers, said Dr Grass. While a hard drive uses zeros and ones to represent data, the DNA code is written in sequences of four chemical nucleotides, known as A,C,T and G. But DNA can pack more information into a smaller space, and also has the advantage of durability. In theory, a fraction of an ounce of DNA could store more than 300,000 terabytes of data, said Dr Grass. And archaeological finds had shown that DNA dating back hundreds of thousands of years can still be sequenced today.

Dr Grass's team managed to encode DNA with 83 kilobytes of text from the 1921 Swiss Federal Charter, and a copy of Archimedes' famous work The Method dating from the 10th century. The DNA was encapsulated in silica spheres and warmed to nearly 71C for a week - the equivalent of keeping it for 2,000 years at 10C. When decoded, it was found to be error-free. The scientists are now working on ways to label specific pieces of information on DNA strands to make them searchable. "In DNA storage, you have a drop of liquid containing floating molecules encoded with information," said Dr Grass. "Right now, we can read everything that's in that drop. But I can't point to a specific place within the drop and read only one file."

DNA storage could be used to preserve troves of historical texts, government documents or entire archives of private companies - all in a single droplet, he added. The main drawback of the technology was cost. Encoding and saving just a few megabytes of data in DNA currently cost "thousands of dollars", so personal DNA hard drives were unlikely to be within reach of ordinary consumers any time soon.

Internet pioneer Vint Cerf has warned of a "digital dark age" descending as computer hardware and software becomes obsolete. Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in February, he said: "We are nonchalantly throwing all of our data into what could become an information black hole without realising it." Source

This bizarre piece of land may look like a gigantic eye from the sky - but is in fact an erupting mud volcano. The rare flare-up recently occurred at the Pugachevsky mud volcano on the east Russian island of Sakhalin. From above it appears that the centre of the volcano is the pupil, which is surrounded by a muddy brown iris.

Sakhalin photographer Mikhail Mikhailov, who snapped the astonishing shot, said: "I haven't ever seen anything like this before. There are quite a lot of mud volcanoes in the world and this one is well-known. But I haven't ever seen it looking like an eye. It was a very strong eruption, the mud was getting out from one point and got spread around evenly. It created a very beautiful view, looking exactly like an earth eye, especially from a helicopter. It is definitely a rare phenomenon." Source

A surprisingly strong G3-class geomagnetic storm erupted on Aug. 15th when a CME hit Earth's magnetic field. Two nights later, as the storm was subsiding, midnight sky watchers in North America witnessed a rare and beautiful form of aurora--a "proton arc." Paul Zizka photographed the phenomenon on Aug. 17th from Banff, Alberta (see below, left). "It was incredible," says Zizka. "The whitish pillar remained nearly stationary for over 30 minutes--enough time for a self-portrait." In Val Marie, Saskatchewan, photographer Sherri Grant saw a purple proton arc cutting across the Milky Way. And in Oroville, Washington, at the Table Mountain Star Party, campers witnessed at least two more arcs(see below, centre and right).

Ordinary auroras are caused by electrons, which rain down on Earth's atmosphere from above. Atoms of oxygen and nitrogen, excited by the pitter-patter of electrons, form dynamic curtains of light. Protons have a different effect. For reasons not fully understood, protons normally trapped in our planet's ring current sometimes rain down on Earth's atmosphere during geomagnetic storms. En route, they excite a type of plasma wave called "EMIC"--short for electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves. The result is not a curtain, but rather a tight arc of light as shown above. Many of the photographers who witnessed proton arcs on Aug. 17th have been observing auroras for years, yet they had never seen this phenomenon before. Geomagnetic storms still have the capacity to surprise!www.spaceweather.com

Yesterday [see below], we reported a rare apparition of sprites above Hurricane Hilda. Steve Cullen, who lives in Hawaii where the storm is heading, spotted them in a video from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope CloudCam atop Maunakea. A closer look at the video, however, reveals that the dancing forms were not sprites. Instead, Hurricane Hilda has gigantic jets.

Think of them as sprites on steroids: Gigantic jets are lightning-like discharges that spring from the tops of thunderstorms, reaching all the way from the thunderhead to the ionosphere more than 50 miles overhead. They're enormous and powerful. "Gigantic jets are much more rare than sprites," says Oscar van der Velde, a member of the Lightning Research Group at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. "While sprites were discovered in 1989 and have since been photographed by the thousands, it was not until 2001-2002 that gigantic jets were first recorded from Puerto Rico and Taiwan." Only a few dozen gigantic jets have ever been seen, mostly over open ocean. Because gigantic jets are so rare, researchers are paying special attention to Hurricane Hilda. "Observations in recent years suggest that large thunderstorm clusters embedded in tropical cyclones harbor favorable conditions for gigantic jets. Hilda seems to confirm this. Extreme turbulent mixing in the storm top may assist in triggering these events," he says.www.spaceweather.com

On August 10th, the National Weather Service reported an intense outburst of lightning from Hurricane Hilda in the Pacific Ocean. Steve Cullen lives in Waikoloa, Hawaii, where the storm is heading, and when he heard the report he had an idea. Cullen explains: "I wondered if the storm was close enough to be captured by the Canada France Hawaii Telescope CloudCam atop Maunakea. After sunset I logged on to the CloudCam site to check the most recent two-hour timelapse loop, and sure enough, WE HAD SPRITES!!!" Here are some frames from the video:

Sprites are a strange and beautiful form of lightning that shoot up from the tops of electrical storms. They reach all the way up to the edge of space alongside meteors, auroras, and noctilucent clouds. Some researchers believe cosmic rays help trigger sprites, but this is controversial. In short, sprites are a true space weather phenomenon. As awareness of sprites has increased in recent years, photographers have started to catch them dancing atop ordinary thunderstorms on a regular basis: photo gallery. Seeing sprites above a hurricane, however, is rare. Most hurricanes don't even have regular lightning because the storms lack a key ingredient for electrical activity: vertical winds. (For more information read the Science@NASA article "Electric Hurricanes" by Patrick Barry and Dr.Tony Phillips.) Clearly, Hurricane Hilda is not a typical storm. www.spaceweather.com

In the approach to perihelion over the past few weeks, Rosetta has been witnessing growing activity from Comet 67P/Churyumov - Gerasimenko, with one dramatic outburst event proving so powerful that it even pushed away the incoming solar wind.

The comet reaches perihelion on Thursday, the moment in its 6.5-year orbit when it is closest to the Sun. In recent months, the increasing solar energy has been warming the comet's frozen ices, turning them to gas, which pours out into space, dragging dust along with it.

The period around perihelion is scientifically very important, as the intensity of the sunlight increases and parts of the comet previously cast in years of darkness are flooded with sunlight.

Although the comet's general activity is expected to peak in the weeks following perihelion, much as the hottest days of summer usually come after the longest days, sudden and unpredictable outbursts can occur at any time - as already seen earlier in the mission.

On 29 July, Rosetta observed the most dramatic outburst yet, registered by several of its instruments from their vantage point 186 km from the comet. They imaged the outburst erupting from the nucleus, witnessed a change in the structure and composition of the gaseous coma environment surrounding Rosetta, and detected increased levels of dust impacts. Perhaps most surprisingly, Rosetta found that the outburst had pushed away the solar wind magnetic field from around the nucleus.

Vessels discovered in the brain that were thought not to exist could revolutionise study of neurological diseases like Alzheimer's.

The brain is directly connected to the immune system by vessels previously thought not to exist, new research reports. The finding means the textbooks will have to be rewritten. Discovery of the vessels may also revolutionise the study of neurological diseases like Alzheimer's and autism.

Professor Jonathan Kipnis, who led the research, was initially sceptical about the results: "I really did not believe there are structures in the body that we are not aware of. I thought the body was mapped. I thought that these discoveries ended somewhere around the middle of the last century. But apparently they have not." The vessels are located in the meninges — the membrane that surrounds the brain and spinal cord. The vessels run near major blood vessels, which partly explains why they have been so difficult to find.

The left-hand image below shows the old map of the lymphatic system, and the updated version is on the right.

The discovery will likely have profound implications for how scientists study the neuro-immune system, Professor Kipnis said: "Instead of asking, 'How do we study the immune response of the brain?' 'Why do multiple sclerosis patients have the immune attacks?' now we can approach this mechanistically. Because the brain is like every other tissue connected to the peripheral immune system through meningeal lymphatic vessels.

It changes entirely the way we perceive the neuro-immune interaction. We always perceived it before as something esoteric that can't be studied. But now we can ask mechanistic questions.

We believe that for every neurological disease that has an immune component to it, these vessels may play a major role. Hard to imagine that these vessels would not be involved in a [neurological] disease with an immune component. In Alzheimer's, there are accumulations of big protein chunks in the brain. We think they may be accumulating in the brain because they're not being efficiently removed by these vessels." The study was published in the journal Nature (Louveau et al., 2015). Source

A Dutch start-up has developed a way to use living plants as a continuous source of clean energy - the system works best in wetlands or watery fields like rice paddies.

Here's another development worthy of applause: A Dutch start-up has developed a way to use living plants as a continuous source of clean energy - all that is needed is a light source, carbon dioxide, water, and a field or patch of plants.

The company is called Plant-e, and it is showing the world how easy it can be to bring electricity to isolated regions currently without power.

As shared in the video below, the system works best in wetlands or watery fields like rice paddies. Also, it doesn't matter if the water is brackish or polluted. This means that areas unsuitable for growing crops could be repurposed as a power source.

How does it work?

Based on natural processes, electrons are harvested from the soil and electricity is produced while plants continue to grow! It might sound too good to be true, but it absolutely is not.

As Next Nature shares, the theory behind the Plant-e system is simple. When a plant creates food using photosynthesis, a large portion of the organic matter generated is actually excreted by the roots into the soil. That same organic matter then gets consumed by micro-organisms living in the soil, which release electrons as a byproduct of this consumption. By placing an electrode near the roots, it then becomes easy to harvest this waste energy and turn it into electricity.

In addition, the plants are left unharmed during the entire process. In fact, tests show that the plants will continue to grow normally in the presence of electrodes, providing a constant source of power day and night. Combined with lamps powered by salt water, off-grid locations may have access to sustainable energy sooner than predicted!

At present, a prototype green roof utilizing this technology is already being developed and tested in the Netherlands. If all goes well, the Plant-e team hopes to utilize this system to harvest a significant amount of energy - maybe even enough to power a house. At present, they have been able to use the technology to generate enough energy to power a cell phone - but time will no doubt allow the company to perfect its process.

The amount of renewable energy sources being developed is astonishing; perhaps very soon in the near future technologies like solar and wind power may be merged with a system like this, completely eliminating humanity's dependence on fossil fuels. Source

On August 15th, Venus will pass almost directly between Earth and the sun--an event astronomers call "inferior solar conjunction". As Venus approaches the sun, the planet is turning its night side toward Earth, reducing its luminous glow to a thin sliver. Damian Peach sends this image of the narrowing crescent from his private observatory in Selsey, UK:

In the days ahead, the crescent of Venus will become increasingly thin and circular. The horns of the crescent might actually touch when the Venus-sun angle is least on August 15th (7.9o). This is arguably the most beautiful time to observe Venus--but also the most perilous. The glare of the nearby sun magnified by a telescope can damage the eyes of anyone looking through the eyepiece. Anthony J. Cook of the Griffith Observatory has some advice for observers: "I have observed Venus at conjunction, but only from within the shadow of a building, or by adding a mask to the front end of the telescope to fully shadow the optics from direct sunlight. This is tricky with a refractor or a catadioptric, because the optics start at the front end of the tube.

Here at Griffith Observatory, I rotate the telescope dome to make sure the lens of the telescope is shaded from direct sunlight, even through it means that the lens will be partially blocked when aimed at Venus. With our Newtonian telescope, I add a curved cardboard mask at the front end of the tube to shadow the primary mirror." Potential observers should take precautions as outlined above. That said, if you have a GOTO telescope, command it to slew to Venus this evening. The slender cresent is only 12o from the sun on Aug. 8th, and it's a beauty! www.spaceweather.com